May 2011

May saw Mason eating all kinds of new stuff and Papa turning into a jungle gym.

Bella had her very first gymnastics recital (called the "Spring Fling").

There are plenty of videos of all her tricks here, but this is Papa's favorite. Her first trick, she was nervous and needed to see where Mama and Peepapa were to feel better, but notice how she miraculously gets better after her first round of applause. No idea where she inherited this?!

April 2011

April was a month of randomness.
Of course there was Easter and Easter Eggs.

We built more stuff at Lowe's.

Bella got her first braids.

And there was lots of quality time just hanging out.

Oh, and Papa's worst nightmare began to take shape.
Dear...God...Not...A DRUMMER!!!!

March 2011

In March Bella went on her first trip without Mama and Papa. Peepa took her on a train ride to St. Louis to visit some of the Illinois Irwins.

She was super excited to have her VERY OWN bed at the hotel.

And she showed Peepa how to use his IPad (seriously).

And Gigi got to do a girl's hair again.


Back on the home front, Mason discovered two things:
1 - Mirrors are awesome.
2 - The baby in the mirror is adorable.

February 2011

Well, apparently nothing interesting happened in January, however in February we got THE BLIZZARD (or, as Ryan calls it, "Snownami 2K11!"). For someone who grew up in Oklahoma this was pretty awesome...for a day or two...then it got old.

This is after about 12 hours of constant snow.
The few out the back door. The dogs loved this for about 30 seconds at a time.

They closed Ryan's office that day, but he still had a big client meeting the next day. So he (and his assistant) worked most of the day.
And of course we got to build our very first snow man!

December 2010

Mason tried peas for the first time in December.


Our first Christmas with the "whole" family.
We started Christmas Eve at Pepapa and Mema Joyce's house.

But Santa's first present was the tummy flu, so we took a long drive back home and spent Christmas opening presents on the couch.

Mema and Pepa Ray watched us open presents all the way from Texas!

Then Pepa and Mark came to open presents at our house.

I loved my first piano!


Mason had his favorite present.

And I had mine!

Poor Mason just had too much excitement.

Since it was unusually warm for December, we were able to take our first bike ride!

November 2010

It was unseasonably warm all month, so we were able to take a later-than usual trip to the zoo.

Bella also realized how cool it is to dress in Papa's clothes.

October 2010

October was another busy month too!

First we had "Parktoberfest," which is just like Oktoberfest, except in a small Kansas City suburb.

There was lots of time playing inside and outside:

We discovered a caterpillar that had managed to get inside somehow. We was named "Stinky."
We went to the pumpkin patch with our friends Russ and Liz.
And Halloween was a blast! We were a "Bellaphant" and "Mouson."